It is well known that good pacing is critical to athletic performance. A key objective in most endurance sports is to ensure that energy output is spread as best as possible during a race and is maximal at the end so that an athlete can finish as fast as possible. An ideal pace strategy involves the perceptive process of proportioning energy use such that the athlete is never working at too high a level, so as to tire quickly, or at too low a level so as to not reach potential.
It is often difficult for an endurance athlete to judge accurately the pace at which he or she should work to spend the available energy in such a way that the body's resources are almost exhausted when he or she crosses the finish line. To aid in pacing, pacing systems or devices such as a “metronome” are used to transmit a pace to the athlete. A metronome is a periodic signal that provides absolute timing. For example, 60 beats per second (“bps”) is typically transmitted to someone as a once per second signal (a short audio beep or click, for example). Regardless of the actual pace of the activity, the pace signal, if it is provided to a user, is unwavering and constant.
However, when trying to perform any number of physical activities at a given pace with the help of a metronome, including for example practicing a short piano composition, it can be difficult to keep right on pace. Since the metronome is not listening or paying attention to the activity in any way, it is completely up to user to integrate the pace suggestion and “play along”.
This works well when the user is proficient and the pace of activity is well within their ability. Typically, though, the metronome is a training device that is meant to help a user move beyond their current level of ability. Therefore, the user is typically performing at the very edge of their ability, which can lead to the pace of the activity naturally faltering.